Somerset Middle School students win ROV contest

George Austin Editor

Wednesday

May 16, 2018 at 3:01 AM

SOMERSET — A team of students from Somerset Middle School took two first place awards in the Scout Division of the 2018 New England Regional Marine Advanced Technology and Education Center Remote Operated Vehicles competition that was held at Sandwich High School on May 5.

Seventh grade student Alec Ferreira and sixth graders Brennan Taylor, Thomas Eckman and Steven Erickson built a remote operated vehicle and then brought it to the competition where they had to perform certain tasks with it. The name of their team was Titanic Turtles.

The students also had to put information about what the ROV is made from, what it can do, what each piece of it does and why their robot is unique on a poster board to display at the competition.

The remote operated vehicle that the students made is built from PVC piping. They put foam around it so it could float back up to the surface after being under water. The ROV has grabbers to pick up and put down objects.

"They were very effective," Erickson said of the grabbers.

The students put plastic mesh around the motor to protect it from being damaged.

The control box for their ROV consists of three switches, one that makes the vehicle go up and down, another that makes it go to the left or right and another that makes it go forwards and backwards.

Ferreira, Taylor, Eckman and Erickson were part of the ROV Technology Club at the middle school which is a voluntary activity for students. Starting in November, the students worked on the ROV every Thursday after school up until the competition. They came in during the April school vacation to work on it so that it would be ready for the competition.

There were three parts that the students were judged on at the competition which included how their ROV performed when it was put in a pool to do certain tasks, their poster board and an overall category that was a combination of those two categories. The Somerset Middle School team won first place for the overall category and also first place for the mission category which was the part of the competition where they had to use the ROV to perform certain tasks.

"When we got the overall win, we were shocked," Ferreira said.

During the competition, Ferreira operated the control box and Eckman controlled the tether in the water. The students encountered a problem when the right motor of their ROV did not work in the first round because it got caught in the mesh they put around it. The team scored 39 points for the tasks they were able to perform with the vehicle in the first round. Before the second round of the competition started, the students redesigned the way the mesh was configured around the motor so it would not get caught in it. They got the motor working for the second round and scored 70 points.

Keith Bradley, a science teacher at the middle school who is the advisor for the ROV Technology Club, said the team performed well under pressure.

"To see the problem and be able to come up with the solution was impressive," Bradley said.

There were nine teams in the division that the Somerset Middle School students competed in. Bradley said he was surprised the students earned the first place awards. He said when they arrrived at the competition, there were other ROVs that looked intimidating and said the Somerset team was relatively young as compared to the other teams.

Bradley said that when the team arrived at the competition, the students learned they were supposed to have protections for all of the propellers on their ROV, but they didn't. He said they asked other students for materials that could be used to protect the motors.

"They handled themselves well," Bradley said. "They stayed calm. In this stage in your life, you can get frustrated, but they didn't."

The students competed in an introductory level division. The students can go up to higher levels in high school if they want to continue to compete in the ROV events. Ferreira was competing in the competition for the second year.

"It's fun," Taylor said of the ROV Technology Club. "It's good teamwork skills."

Bristol Community College was the sponsor for the regional ROV competition. The Marine Advanced Technology and Education Center is located in Monterey, Calif.

Bradley said the competition helped the students to learn about physics, buoyancy, motion and energy, which is part of the curriculum at the middle school. He said they learned about electrical systems through the motors in the ROV. Bradley said the activity kept the students engaged as they built the ROV from the bottom up. He said each member of the team found a niche for the part of the project that he liked doing, whether it was building the vehicle or piloting it. He said the activity showed the students how to handle stressful situations and how to interact with one another.

"The commitment level is pretty intense," Bradley said of the time the students put into the project. "They stick with it."

Bradley said the goal of the ROV competitions is to get students involved early in marine technology. He said there are job opportunities in the area in marine technology.

"And there's a need for it, as well," Bradley said.

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